


in other words: please, be true

by cloudledee



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (Kind Of...), 1980s, Alternate Universe - Music, Band Fic, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, its a 1980s band au but there's a lot of other stuff going on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-21 20:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13151886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudledee/pseuds/cloudledee
Summary: Hinata wants only two things in life: to become a famous musician, and to get away from his shitty job and his even shittier coworker. The first -- maybe. The second, however, doesn’t quite go as planned.(Hinata’s got some big dreams, and Kageyama may or may not be convinced to play along.)





	in other words: please, be true

**Author's Note:**

> this is my @haikyuuwriters (tumblr) gift for pei (@ducttapedomination on tumblr)! hopefully my lateness is excused by the fact that i’m 4k over the word count range… hope you enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it! 
> 
> (me: has some of the busiest weeks of her life leading up to the holidays  
> also me: lets power-write a 10k fic hm?)

PART I:

When the doorbell rings, Hinata is just about asleep. 

Some semblance of a dream is beginning to take shape in the back of his mind: the musical cadence of voices sound in his head but he can’t make out the words, and the sunlight streaming through the window is fading to a pleasing golden blur. The chime of the doorbell barely shakes him awake, and in the brief moment that reality is still piecing itself together, a swath of blues and blacks slowly coalesce into the face of the first customer Hinata has had in weeks. 

“Welcome,” he stammers; panic is slowly beginning to register in his sleepy mind -- _he’s at work_. “How can I help you?”

He blinks and finds that his customer has gone. He blinks again, glances left and right, and finds that his customer is standing beside the counter with him. 

“Customers aren’t supposed to stand here,” he says dumbly.

“I’m not a customer. I work here.”

Hinata blinks about six more times for good measure, but the face beside him remains completely unfamiliar. His chin juts out slightly, a haughty expression that’s only emphasized by a severe frown and a glare that seems like it could kill.

“I -- I’ve never seen you here before. Who are you?”

“I’m Kageyama Tobio. I start today.”

“Huh? And you just waltzed in?”

“I walked.”

_“What?”_

Kageyama turns to face him, and Hinata is able to confirm that his glare does in fact kill.

“I said, I didn’t waltz. I walked.”

“I can already tell working with you is going to be great,” Hinata says under his breath.

“I’m not working with you,” he interjects (Hinata’s surprised he could even even hear that). “We have a fifteen-minute overlap between our shifts.”

Of course they’re not working together -- Hinata should have realized that an out-of-the-way music store like this one wouldn’t need more than one person on duty at a time. In any case, he’s glad he gets to keep his two hours of precious free time without anyone intruding.

“Then I’m clocking out.” Hinata stands up. “Do you know what to do?”

He receives a slightly deeper frown and a tiny nod in response.

“Then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, Kageyama.”

He’s met with only silence. 

 

There’s a commotion going on in the back, and Hinata is dying to know what it is. 

Unfortunately, he’s very preoccupied with the tall glasses of champagne he’s balancing on one arm, and he’s already pushing his limit with how far he’s craning his neck as he navigates the dimly lit room. He’s had two scares already tonight, and he’s fairly sure he’ll be fired if he drops an entire platter (for about the fourth time). The salary here is too good to risk his neck over a bit of backstage gossip. 

“Your drinks,” he says, but the ladies at the table just frown at him. 

“Wasn’t the set supposed to start at eight?” asks the taller of the two, a severe-looking middle-aged woman who reminds him somewhat painfully of every teacher he’s ever had. 

“Is it that late already?” Hinata glances at the stage, which is still empty, but through the open door to the back room he can see the manager, Takeda, gesticulating wildly. “I think something’s up.”

“You sure are a smart one,” teacher-lady snorts. “Get _someone_ to play, won’t you?”

He leaves with a hurried “yes ma’am,” grateful to have an excuse to see what’s going on, but he still has four more orders and a dozen complaints, and so he’s not even facing the stage when he finally hears Takeda’s voice into the microphone:

“Um - sorry for the inconvenience,” says Takeda. “Fukui-san was suddenly taken ill, so Kageyama-kun here will be filling in on piano.”

Hinata’s first thought is that he misheard Takeda, but when he turns around, it’s definitely Kageyama from the music store who’s shuffling awkwardly onstage. He’s wearing a sharp suit and his hair is slicked back, and that alone adds a good few years to his appearance. Hinata can’t see much else from where he’s standing, and the low light doesn’t help, but he can make out the firm set of his jawline and his hands as they’re illuminated by the piano light.

He begins without preamble, something Hinata thinks he’s heard before but isn’t sure. It’s not like he listens to jazz in his spare time, anyway. He’s a lot different when he’s on the piano -- more mature, less clumsy. He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation for longer than four seconds, not when he’s improvising long, complicated lines like this. Hinata had never bothered to ask Kageyama anything about his personal life (or really anything in general), and he’d never played so much as a note on one of the old pianos in the back, but it somehow doesn’t surprise Hinata that this is what he gets up to in his spare time.

“He’s pretty good, right?”

It’s Yachi, one of the only waitresses he really gets along with. 

“Who, Kageyama?”

“You know him? I thought you weren’t really into jazz.”

“He’s my coworker at my other job,” he says, still not able to take his eyes off this new Kageyama. He can’t reconcile him at all with the grumpy boy who he spends fifteen minutes sitting next to every day. 

“The fill-in?” says Kiyoko, the bartender, who’s snuck up silently beside them. “You think he’s good, Hitoka-chan? Anyone can do what he’s doing.”

“Not me,” objects Yachi. “Or Hinata. And you don’t play the piano.”

“He’s too uninspired,” says Kiyoko flatly. 

Hinata considers saying something, but he’s always out of his league when it comes to high-brow jazz conversations, so he tunes them out and instead watches the club in front of him.

Kageyama plays swiftly and precisely, and despite how young he is Hinata feels that he’s a lot more commanding than any of the piano soloists he’s heard here before - not that there are many. Maybe it’s because Hinata doesn’t listen to enough jazz, but he doesn’t think Kageyama is _uninspired_. If anything, he seems involved, narrow-eyed glare focused intently on the keys, a little too wound-up for the lighthearted number he’s playing.

By the time his shift ends an hour later, the pianist is still going. He’s improvising again, and the audience watches with somewhat impressed attention. Hinata finds himself lingering at the back of the club -- it’s not like he has anything to do tonight, anyway. 

“Aren’t you clocking out?” asks Yachi. “Or are you going to stay till the end of the set?” 

“Oh -- no, I think I’ll go now,” says Hinata. “I don’t even know why I stayed.”

And it’s true, he tells himself -- he wasn’t planning to talk to Kageyama when the set was over, and he knows too little about jazz to be that wrapped up in the music. So he packs up his stuff and slips into the mild night air. He can still hear wayward strains of Kageyama’s music, a roiling, lively beat.

The next day, it’s as though he never saw Kageyama at the jazz club -- he shuffles in, hands stuffed in his pockets, back to normal with messy hair and a tacky knit sweater. As usual, he slouches against the wall behind the counter while Hinata pretends to be busy rearranging a stack of music theory books. The cassette player sings on, a synth pop number he rather likes, and that’s as much of an excuse as any to not say anything to Kageyama for the painful fifteen minutes they’re together. 

It’s only when Hinata clocks out that he’s possessed by the urge to say something. When he glances over at Kageyama, his gaze shifts from the opposite wall to meet Hinata’s, and he can’t just ignore him now --

“Um, good job,” he mumbles, and only when Kageyama’s eyebrows knit together does he realize that it sounds like he’s complimenting him on his fifteen minutes of doing nothing. 

“I mean -- at _Karasuno_ yesterday.”

“At… _Karasuno_?”

“Yeah, the jazz club you played at?” Hinata’s beginning to regret this conversation more with every second. “You know, piano? Fill-in?”

Kageyama blinks at him. “You were there?”

“Yeah, I work there.”

“You work there?” he repeats. “But why?”

“Have you heard of a thing called money?” Hinata grabs his jacket and heads towards the door. “‘Cause I am in dire need of some.”

“No, why a _jazz club_ , you dumbass.”

“Better than working at a restaurant, pay is good, customers are classy,” Hinata rattles off. “And I just like music.”

Kageyama looks like he wants to argue, following Hinata with that steadfast glare all the way to the door, but evidently can’t think of any comeback good enough. (Sucks to him.)

“See you,” he says, and, though he isn’t expecting him to say anything, is still kind of pissed when the door swings shut and Kageyama hasn’t said a word. 

Unfortunately, the fact that they’ve breached their no-talking barrier doesn’t mean their relationship improves. If anything, it goes from awkward to uncomfortable to just nasty. _Kageyama_ is nasty. He cramps Hinata’s style. 

He doesn’t see Kageyama at Karasuno again, but he can’t get through his fifteen-minute shift without fuming about something-or-other he did. Most often, it’s the fact that he changes the cassette tape to jazz _every fucking afternoon_ , like Hinata doesn’t already listen to too much of it as it is. 

“Will you quit it!” he explodes one day, snatching the cassette player from Kageyama’s side of the counter. “Can’t you wait fifteen minutes to play your stupid Gershwin?”

Kageyama stares at him (probably because Hinata has mangled the name beyond recognition), and his face eventually settles into its customary frown. 

“You could recognize it,” he says (of course he chooses the least relevant part what he said). “It wasn’t even 'Rhapsody in Blue'.”

“Just because I’m not a fanatic like you --”

“I’m not a _fanatic_ \--”

“-- doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about. Anyway, that’s beside the point. I play my music, and when I leave in four minutes, you play yours.”

“I thought you’d want to talk about it, okay?” Kageyama explodes. “About Gershwin.”

“Wait...what?”

“Clearly, I underestimated how much you hated jazz. Even though you work at _Karasuno_. I still don’t get why you do it.”

That’s about the most socially inept way anyone has tried to start a conversation with him. And though it’s sort of sweet, Hinata isn’t about to forgive him for his many infractions, especially because he didn’t really want to be starting conversations with Kageyama in the first place. 

Still, though, he feels like he owes his bumbling coworker an explanation, if only to satiate his curiosity:

“I’m saving up, okay? I have big dreams.”

As soon the words leave his mouth, he flushes with embarrassment, but Kageyama doesn’t seem to realize the childlishness of what he’d said. He only continues to fixate him with that stare, but it seems a little less malicious, somehow.

When he leaves roughly one minute later, he swears Kageyama’s breath catches as if he’s going to say something, but he never quite gets it out. 

 

And then, one day, Hinata is careless. He doesn’t notice the hands ticking forward on the wall clock, and forgets to set everything back in place. He forgets to start the cassette player sixteen minutes before his shift ends.

When Kageyama pushes the door open, Hinata is caught red-handed with a guitar and a voice that cracks as his heart drops to his stomach. 

Kageyama gapes at him. “You… music?”

After the initial shock fades, Hinata is filled instead with a senseless fury -- why does Kageyama keep staring at him like he’s batshit crazy? Is he really _that_ horrible?

“Yeah, _I music_ ,” he snaps. “What about it?”

“That’s your big dream?”

“That’s my big fucking dream, all right.” Hinata mounts the guitar back on the rack and grabs the cassette player. “Stop staring at me like that.”

“I’m not staring at you.”

“I can feel your icy glare of judgement boring holes into my head.”

“Why are you so defensive about it?” Kageyama rounds the counter. “It’s just music. Jeez.”

“It’s not just music if you want to be a musician!” Hinata cries, his voice cracking yet again (why his body has suddenly decided to revert to being thirteen, he doesn’t know). “You of all people should know!”

“Well, yeah, but I’m not an ass about it like you are. Stop making such a big deal out of it.”

Hinata grabs a random cassette tape off the nearest shelf and begins to fumble with it, but his hands are shaking and he can hardly get it out of the case. 

“I mean, I quit vocal lessons a long time ago, but even I can tell your technique is sort of shitty, and where did you pick up guitar? Because your fingerings are all over the place, but --”

“No one asked you!” he practically shrieks, forcing the tape into the cassette player and of course it’s the fucking Gershwin tape they fought about the other day. “Don’t you ever shut up?”

“-- it’s not like you suck or anything.”

“Wh-what?”

“I said, you don’t suck. In general. Not really. But when it comes to the specifics…”

And though Hinata is still sort of very mad, he can’t help the laughter that bubbles up from his chest. 

“Just stop while you’re ahead.”

“I’m ahead? Of what?”

“Of not being the most annoying person in my life. I think, for now, it’s the guy who nearly ran me over this morning.”

“You’re still the most annoying person in _my_ life,” Kageyama shoots back, but it’s sort of half-hearted. 

“Listen…” he adds after a long moment, his face scrunched up into a scowl so extreme his eyes are hardly visible, “play it again.”

“What? Why?”

“I’ll tell you what especially sucked.”

Hinata wants to yell at him again, but then again, when is he ever going to get the advice of someone who’s not a country-bumpkin amateur like him? It’s likely that Kageyama has some sort of formal music training, and if Hinata is as serious about his _big dream_ as he tells himself he is, then he can’t pass up this opportunity.

So he pulls the guitar off the wall and, sort of hesitantly, starts up again. His voice cracks a couple of times at first (maybe it’s a nervous tic), but even after he settles into it, Kageyama keeps stopping him to fix things, and not gently, either.

It’s okay, though. It’s fine. He ends up staying an hour after his shift ends, but it’s not like there are any customers, and this is as good of a use of time as any.

It’s enough of a good use of time for him to keep playing for Kageyama, day after day, until there’s never an awkward “hey - so should I…” or “um, are you going to play today?” -- when Kageyama comes in, Hinata is already ready, and Kageyama doesn’t shuffle in with his head down anymore. 

 

_“Kageyama?”_

“Uh, hey,” says the one and only, scratching his neck.

It had been two months since their informal voice lessons had first started, and Hinata had almost forgotten that Kageyama existed outside the music store on weekday afternoons. But here he was, an hour into Hinata’s shift at _Karasuno Jazz Club_ , decked out in a red button-down and slacks.

“But no one’s sick today,” is all he manages to say.

“I’m not playing. I’m just… here.” He casts a glance over the club, and his gaze lingers on the stage, where one of their regulars bands is getting ready to start. “Enjoying the music, or whatever.”

“Oh. Well, good for you. Are you by yourself?”

(Hinata doesn’t know why he asked that.)

“Yeah.” Kageyama can’t seem to keep his eyes on Hinata -- his gaze keeps flitting across the tables. “You’re working, right?”

“Mmhm. I’m done a half-hour before the set ends.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“Yeah.”

Kageyama fixates on Hinata’s shoes next, and is just about opening his mouth to say something when Hinata catches Kiyoko glaring at him. _Get to work_ , her eyes say, and he can’t blame her. They’re busy enough without him slacking off. 

“I’ve got, like, eight tables to wait on, so…”

“Ah - okay. See you around.”

Kageyama slips off to a table, looking sort of lost as he weaves through the crowd. Hinata turns in the opposite direction, vowing to himself that that entire corner of the club was off-limits for the rest of his shift.

Two hours later, Hinata’s resolve is tested but intact, and so he allows himself to slide into Kageyama’s seat in the middle of a piece. The dim light catches his eyes but not much else; they look darker but no less bright. 

“Hinata?” he whispers. “Is your shift over?” 

“No, I’m currently losing pay to waste my time sitting here with you.”

Kageyama regards him dumbfoundedly, and Hinata has to suppress a laugh. He’s always surprised by how literally he takes things.

“I’m kidding, dumbass.”

“I knew that,” he lies (Hinata can glimpse the tips of his ears going red). “Why are you here? Don’t you supposedly hate listening to jazz?”

“I’m here to bother you,” says Hinata sagely, but the pianist has started to improvise something and Kageyama’s attention is stolen. 

Hinata watches the band for a while: their easy, coordinated movement, the underlying understanding between them that’s discernible even to him. But sooner rather than later, he’s watching Kageyama watching them, completely transfixed. It’s like he’s trying to drink up the performance and store it in his brain, maybe so that he could do the same with those capable fingers of his. 

Hinata has forgotten what Kageyama’s piano playing sounds like. He only remembers the vague shock he’d felt seeing him up there on the stage, looking crisp and professional -- like he’d already found his purpose. Like he was already living his big dream. 

“Did you like it?” asks Kageyama after the set is done, but doesn’t give him time to respond. “I especially liked the saxophone solo about halfway through -- I don’t know what the piece is called, I’ll have to listen for it later, but --”

“I liked it. But when are you going to play again?”

Kageyama stops short.

“Can’t you do another set sometime?”

“It doesn’t really work like that,” he says, now speaking ultra-fast, “and I’m sure you know that Karasuno doesn’t let just anybody play. Besides, I’d never play piano by myself. That last time was an emergency.”

“Why don’t you play with some others, then? You’re good enough to be part of a group.”

“You don’t get it. I’m not really as good as you think. I’m not --”

Kageyama runs his hand through his hair, messing it up entirely; black spools fall over his forehead as they revert to their naturally tousled state.

“I’m not really that good at playing with other people,” he finally admits, squinting at the ground. 

“Why not?”

“I don’t… really know. I guess I can’t really listen to other people. For jazz it’s important, you know. Apparently -- I mean, according to others I -- I’m too much of a control freak.”

“That you are,” Hinata laughs, but when he catches sight of Kageyama’s expression, it dies in his throat. 

The face that had seemed so severe and arrogant to him a few months ago is softer now -- maybe it’s Hinata’s perception, or maybe it’s the shame clouding his features and turning the iciness of his glare lukewarm. Hinata doesn’t like this new Kageyama. Annoying is better than ashamed in the end, it seems.

“Play with me.”

“With _you_?” he echoes. 

“If no one else does, I will. I can’t play jazz, but you can play other things, right?”

“Yeah, but — no.” Kageyama’s teeth are worrying his lower lip. “I can’t.”

“But why not?”

“Just go home,” he hisses. 

“I don’t want to. Play with me.”

Kageyama strides outside the club, and Hinata follows; he takes it as a good sign that he doesn’t immediately push him away.

“Nothing bad’s going to happen, Stupidyama. I’ll just play my guitar and you can play the piano and I can sing. And you can sing too. Can you sing?”

Kageyama nods stiffly.

“So, it’ll be fine. And it’ll be fun.”

Kageyama hunches his shoulders up to his ears and keeps walking.

Hinata’s so busy trying to sell his new idea that he doesn’t realize he’s accompanied Kageyama all the way to the bus stop. He’s going in the opposite direction of his house, anyway, and it’s cold outside. So he clambers up into the bus when it arrives, and takes Kageyama’s lack of response as an invitation.

In fact, he coasts along on this lack of rejection until he’s all the way at Kageyama’s front door, the third floor of a plain apartment complex. Kageyama opens the door and leaves it open, which is about as good as he’s going to get.

Kageyama’s apartment is Spartan at best: a kitchenette lies in the front, and in the back, a TV, couch, and a cassette player are stuffed in one corner to make room for a grand piano in the other. He can glimpse a sliver of Kageyama’s bedroom on the left, but can only make out a shelf spilling over with cassette tapes and records.

“What are you staring at?” grumbles Kageyama. “Do you want anything?”

“Wow, what a rare display of kindness.”

“Shut up.”

Kageyama sits down at the piano bench and opens it up. There are books and binders full of music in the shelf next to him, but he doesn’t pick out any one, and instead just fixes Hinata with an expectant stare.

“God, you’re so awkward,” Hinata says, shoving him over so he has room to sit on the bench beside him. “Are you just going to sit there?”

Kageyama’s slouched over the piano, glaring into the distance. Hinata doesn’t think he’s seen that face on him for a long while -- maybe he really didn’t want to do this after all, and all the not-rejection until now was just him not knowing how to say no. 

“Hey, Kageyama. Do you want to--?”

Kageyama breathes in sharply, and that’s the only warning Hinata gets before fingers meet keyboard and the world comes alive under the apartment’s flickering lights.

And that is the beginning of everything.

 

. . .

 

PART II:

Hinata’s not twenty feet above the ground, but he feels dizzy. Maybe it’s the lights glaring down over him, casting light over the cold sweat breaking out all over him, or maybe it’s the way he has to stretch on his tiptoes to reach the microphone.

“Thanks for having us today, guys…”

 

(

_Hinata doesn’t know at what point he begins leaving his guitar at Kageyama’s place, or at what point Kageyama starts picking him up from Karasuno to go spend a few hours crammed near the grand piano. It’s always late when they get there and early when he leaves, but Hinata likes going home at two in the morning with the sound of their music ingrained in his head._

_Sometimes, he doesn’t go home at all, and falls asleep leaning against the wall while Kageyama trails from whatever strange pop-jazz amalgamation they’re used to to the sort of stuff Hinata hears at his job, jazz that’s bubbling and bursting with life, and he can’t ever imagine that no one would want to play with someone who can conjure whole worlds from a sleepy apartment and a grand piano._

_He only knows that what they’re doing is new and amazing. And Kageyama knows it too._

 

 

“Sunday mornings are for local music here on Yokohama City Radio, and today we’re talking with a new group who’re experimenting with a variety of styles as they try to find their footing on the music scene… please welcome Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou, Tsukishima Kei, and Yamaguchi Tadashi…” 

 

 

_When Hinata and Kageyama play at local music events, or even just out in the park on Saturday afternoons, people stop and listen. Kageyama hooks them with his prodigious skill and they stay for Hinata’s clear, energetic voice, and for the way they can never predict what’s coming next with the two of them._

_They meet Tsukishima and Yamaguchi by complete coincidence, on one of the rare days a customer actually stops by at the music store. Kageyama doesn’t even notice someone had come inside and continues to plonk away at one of the upright pianos in the back. Yamaguchi cheers when he finally turns around, and even Tsukishima’s eyes narrow in reluctant admiration._

_Four months and several rehearsals later, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi play the drums and bass for their ever-expanding audience in the streets of Yokohama._

_Hinata has the strange sensation that they’re rolling down a hill, and that things are only going to get faster from here._

 

 

 _Yokohama Performer_ magazine, Issue XV, 1 June 1985:

Young music group _Invincible_ has been taking the local music scene by storm, but they have their sights set on Tokyo and perhaps even all of Japan. 

Their roots lie in jazz, but listening to their music, it isn’t obvious: lead singer and songwriter Hinata Shouyou has brought them in a direction more resembling pop. He and keyboardist Kageyama Tobio were the nucleus of the group, starting from a lucky coincidence of overlapping shifts in the same job, and eventually dropped their jobs to pursue music full-time [...].

 

 

_They resign from the music store on the same day. Hinata whoops and gives Kageyama a high-five, and Kageyama indulges him with a wide, slanted grin._

_“Is this it, Hinata? Your ‘big dreams’ finally coming true?”_

_“For sure.”_

_The city seems so vast ahead of them but Hinata already wants to push at the the walls, go further, and never stop running._

)

 

They haven’t stopped running, not yet. Hinata has dreamed a million times of a show just for them, and this is it -- they aren’t opening for anyone, and it’s not just one song in a sea of performances. It doesn’t matter that the crowd in front of them numbers only about fifty. They’re in Tokyo, and they are playing the music that Hinata wrote. 

Hinata is exhausted by the time the show comes to an end, and he hardly has the energy to shout over the crowd:

“Thanks for coming today! You guys can pick up our new album at a music store near you, so go listen to it!”

It’s sort of a lie: it’s doubtful that any music store but the biggest is stocking their music. Still, the fact that any store at all stocks it is something he only saw happening in his high-school daydreams.

“Hey, dumbass.” Kageyama shoves Hinata a little too roughly, and he nearly stumbles forward. “Are you going to stand here all night?”

“I just might. I don’t want to go home after this.”

Kageyama makes some noise of assent and turns to watch the modest crowd filter out in front of them. These past months, he’s grown without getting any taller: his face has filled out, accentuating his stern features, and he seems a little more comfortable in his own shoes. He doesn’t shuffle at all anymore, that’s for sure.

Eventually, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi bug them about leaving, too, and they help clean up the venue (they’re not quite important enough to have someone do it for them), before they file into the city streets, once again ordinary people in the crowd.

It’s over an hour back to Yokohama by train, but it’s not worth the cost of a hotel in downtown Tokyo to stay for an extra night. So, just after midnight, they’re trekking towards the train station to get home by the early morning. 

Hinata can hardly stay on his feet. The adrenaline rush from the show has drained his boundless energy and he trails behind the group, saved from collapsing right there on the linoleum only by Kageyama’s insistent tugging on his shirtsleeve. Once they’re at the platform, awaiting the train, he nearly falls asleep standing up.

“Hey, stay awake.” Kageyama nudges hims. “None of the rest of us get the luxury of sleeping.”

He keeps talking, but it fades to an indistinct murmur. The grays and blacks of the station are nothing but a shiny blur, the lights flashing like iridescent suns in the corners of his vision.

“Oh, I give up.” 

Kageyama’s voice is much closer to him now, and the next thing he knows, he’s being hoisted into the air. He opens his eyes a sliver and sees the train tracks from behind a broad shoulder and a few wayward locks of black hair. In the sleepy state that he’s in, he doesn’t think anything of it, and just buries his face in Kageyama’s shoulder.

“You spoil him,” says Tsukishima. 

“I do not. Haven’t you heard me lecturing him every rehearsal?”

“You lecture all of us.”

“Well, you spoil Yamaguchi.”

“He _does_.”

“That’s different. Yamaguchi’s a lot more tolerable than Hinata is…”

Only when Hinata wakes up does he realize he’s fallen asleep: he cracks his eyes open to find himself surrounded by gray and white and blue. _Kageyama’s room_. The mattress sinks beside him, and with great effort, he turns his head to find Kageyama sprawled beside him. 

“You wake up _now_ , stupid?” Kageyama mumbles. “I didn’t haul your ass all the way back home so you could wake up the second we got here.”

 _Then why did you?_ Hinata wants to ask, but there’s a strange disconnect between his brain and his mouth. He has no control over his body anymore, and perhaps that’s why he reaches over and yanks Kageyama into his arms.

He makes a muffled noise of surprise. His whole body tenses up, his shoulders hunched like on a walk home from _Karasuno Jazz Club_ when Hinata was persuading him to make the decision of a lifetime. His eyes are so close to Hinata’s face it’s hard to focus on them. They are wide and lucid, iridescent under the harsh lights, a blue-gray he doesn’t think he could forget even if he tried. 

And so suddenly, so painfully, Hinata _wants_ : he wants his voice to carry throughout the world and he wants to see their name printed in every newspaper, but more than that, he wants what is right beside him. A dream more impossible than the fantasies he’d entertained for his entire life, a globe of impossibilities he could fit in the palm of his hand. A dream that draws itself in tentative lines from images he’d never let himself piece together: a hand, two hands, a sloping back. A mouth, two mouths. A slanted smile. 

Hinata closes his burning eyes, but still, tears spill from whatever badly-patched safe he thought he’d be able to protect. He can only hope that Kageyama can’t see him, or he knows everything will be laid bare. 

Kageyama doesn’t push him away, but he doesn’t move closer. And when Hinata wakes the next morning, he is gone. 

 

 

Hinata packs up his belongings, though they don’t number many: his guitar, his suitcase, his jacket. (Kageyama had to carry all of those, too. Tokyo to Yokohama.) The band is on break for a week, and it’s perfect timing: Hinata can disappear and resurface a changed man in seven days. 

In the ideal scenario, he would disappear and never resurface, but he knows that’ll never fly. It’ll be seven days at most before the four of them meet again, and he has to confront Kageyama again.

Kageyama. God, _Kageyama_. Everything had turned on all at once inside him last night, a deep-seated longing he hadn’t even known he had enveloping him. The flashes he’d let himself see last night keep intruding on his thoughts, and though he tries to push them away they keep returning: two hands, two mouths, and slowly, even more. 

It’s a sickness that’s here to stay -- a burden he’ll have to carry, a lifelong repayment for the weight Kageyama took with him from Tokyo to Yokohama to his own bed. He’d give anything to be able to cure it, turn him back to normal, and be able to continue like he always has. Or so he tells himself, but with every stolen thought he has he feels a rush of excitement akin to the passion he feels when he sings.

(Maybe he’ll be able to write best-selling love songs now.)

Hinata forces himself out of his flat, if only because Kageyama’s late-night voice keeps winding its way into his head, and into the city. He eats lunch at a cafe he’s never been to before. He rides the rollercoasters at Cosmo World all by himself, attracting the disapproval of mothers and the admiration of children as he takes the first seat on the tallest one.

He’s at the harbor on the third evening of his break, the Ferris wheel at his back, when he is bowled over by a sickeningly familiar grip.

“You little fucker! Have you been playing hide-and-seek with me?”

“Get off me!” 

He tries to shove Kageyama away, but he’s too angry to relent. He holds Hinata in a headlock with one arm and socks him in the stomach with the other. Hinata yelps and doubles over -- well, about as far as he can when Kageyama is holding him hostage.

“Ow! I’m sorry!”

“Do you know how many times I’ve called you?”

“I haven’t been home!”

“That’s no excuse!” Kageyama’s chokehold tightens. “I’ve been looking for you for three days! Why the fuck did you just up and leave while I was out buying milk?”

“You were buying milk?” wheezes Hinata.

“I was gone for _fifteen minutes_ , you shit dumbass fuckface!”

Hinata can’t see anything but the ground, but he is almost certain about four mothers just turned and glared at them. Kageyama pays them no heed.

“Don’t _ever_ do anything like that again, you hear me? Especially after --” 

He breaks off, and his hold on Hinata slowly loosens. As the blood rushes back to his head their proximity begins to register. His head is practically buried in Kageyama’s chest. He steps back hurriedly, and can finally get a good look at Kageyama’s face. He’s flushed red, but with anger or embarrassment is anyone’s guess. Hinata’s heart twists as he imagines Kageyama tearing through the city looking for him. 

“Hey -- Kageyama, I’m sorry,” says Hinata, about as gently as he can muster. “I didn’t think you’d be looking for me.”

“Why wouldn’t I be looking for you?” he says sullenly.

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t spend every minute of my life with you.”

Kageyama mumbles something incoherent. 

“Hey, I’ll make it up to you, okay?”

He meets Hinata’s eyes, chin jutting out even more than normal in a childish pout, and acquiesces with a tiny sigh. And as always, that’s about as much of an okay as he’s ever going to get. 

Sunset finds the two of them shut into a carriage on the Ferris wheel that sways as it ascends into the sky. They’d spent the whole evening at the harbor, and Hinata had enjoyed every second that he’d been able to forget about Kageyama and everything he entailed. 

Now, they are quiet, watching as they first swing past the skyline, then above it. The stars aren’t visible through the city’s glare, but their brightness is unparalleled by the sea of neon slowly growing distant below them. Hinata had seen enough stars for a lifetime in his childhood -- he much prefers these dazzling lights, shifting and changing and always growing to match the pace of the world. 

“It’s tall,” remarks Kageyama, craning his neck as he tries to see how far up the wheel will take them. “The skyline’s so distant already.”

“I wish there was a Ferris wheel that’d just keep going. To space or something,” says Hinata idly, hardly thinking about what’s coming about of his mouth. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

“It’d be impossible, is what it would be,” he snorts.

In the brief moment that follows, Hinata is overcome with the sudden sensation that Kageyama is going to breach a serious subject ( _the_ serious subject, even), and he’s right -- just as Kageyama’s breath hitches in the way he always does when he’s nervous, Hinata talks over him.

“You know that American song? That’s what it’s like. You know --”

He begins to sing, ignoring how awkward it is and how obvious it is that he doesn’t want to talk about things more serious than just skies and cities, anything to fill up the silence:

_“Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars…”_

Kageyama snaps his fingers. “Oh, yeah, I know it -- _Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars._ ”

He continues on in his velvety baritone, and Hinata could just sit there listening to him forever, but Kageyama casts him an expectant glance and he forces himself to join in with a slightly off-pitch harmony. He knows the song well, and it’s easy for him to get lost in the music, especially when it’s just him and Kageyama and the bad acoustics of their tiny carriage suspended above the Yokohama harbor. 

_“In other words: please, be true. In other words…”_

Kageyama’s voice breaks off, and Hinata wobbles into silence after him. They both know what the last line is, and they both know the weight that it carries. Hinata finds Kageyama’s eyes in the semi-darkness, luminous and afraid. 

Kageyama lurches to his feet, and the carriage sways precariously beneath them. Hinata’s breath catches somewhere deep in his lungs in the few seconds it takes for Kageyama to cross over to him. 

For the amount of times Kageyama has hauled him to his feet, punched him, screamed at him, and wrestled him, his kiss is gentler than Hinata could have ever expected. Their teeth clack together briefly as Kageyama stumbles into him, and the next thing he knows, his mouth is sliding open.

Kageyama clambers onto Hinata’s seat so that he’s sitting on Hinata’s lap, but he couldn’t care less about the uncomfortable weight. Everything is new and wonderful and his nerves have come alive, and he doesn’t know how to stop.

The Ferris wheel has passed the top of its arc and now they’re coasting downward, the ground coming up to meet them at a snail’s speed. 

_(In other words: I love you…)_

 

(The furniture in Hinata’s apartment gathers dust. He spent practically all his time with Kageyama as it was, but now he only returns to sleep -- and even that is increasingly rare.)

 

(Kageyama’s hands, so capable on the piano, fumble at first. But soon they learn to be quick and clever on a different keyboard, and Hinata sighs into the warm crook of Kageyama’s shoulder.)

 

(Hinata learns what love is in bits and pieces: it’s sunsets at the harbor, it’s taking detours home from rehearsal just to continue the mindless conversation they’re having. It’s also taking turns on the cassette player, making an effort not to spit out Kageyama’s cooking. 

It is the way Hinata’s heart swells so suddenly his whole body hurts when he hears Kageyama sing.)

 

. . . 

 

PART III:

The beginning of the end is an ember that no one sees fall from the butt of a cigarette to the wood-paneled floor of a bar.

Hinata and Kageyama almost detour that night to stop by their old haunt, but Kageyama is tired from that day’s rehearsal, and Hinata is hungry for some canned ramen. So they trek home and fall asleep on the couch while the cassette player trails into silence.

They remain blissfully oblivious until the radio news, always the bringer of disaster, proclaims the next morning:

_“An unexpected fire in the Naka Ward was subdued late last night, but not before moderate to severe damages were done to businesses on the street where it began, including Hisashi Suits, Naka Ramen and Bar, where the fire began, and the neighboring Karasuno Jazz Club.”_

The dishes in Kageyama’s hands splinter as they hit the ground. 

_“Nobody was severely injured. Police say that the fire was almost certainly accidental. Next, in Osaka, four young men were recently apprehended…”_

Hinata sprints to the phone and calls Yachi. Four breathless rings later, she picks up, sounding weary but okay:

_“Everyone is fine. We were really lucky -- we found out the ramen shop was burning pretty much as soon as the cigarette hit the ground, so we were able to evacuate.”_

_They’re fine_ , he mouths to Kageyama, who still won’t stop pacing across the kitchen.

“And the club?” he asks Yachi, who gives a little sigh. 

_“It’s… well, I guess it can be repaired. But I don’t really know if it’s worth it.”_

“Oh. I’m sorry.” He sounds empty, but he doesn’t know what else to say. “I’m glad everyone is okay.”

_“Yeah. Thanks for checking in, Hinata-kun.”_

“Oh, no, it’s no problem. Um -- see you around, I guess.”

Kageyama bombards him with questions as soon as he hangs up -- no one was injured? How badly destroyed is the club? It won’t be repaired? _It won’t be repaired?_

“Yachi said it’s not worth it. I think she meant cost-wise.”

Kageyama sinks down onto the floor and puts his head in his hands. Hinata tries to get him to lift his head, but he only shrinks further into himself.

“Hey, Tobio -- it’s just the location, right? I’m sure all the regulars and wait staff will be able to find other jobs.”

He shakes his head. “It’s gone.”

Hinata feels a brief pang as he remembers the long hours he’d spent under that roof, but it’s only a bittersweet nostalgia. It’s been over a year since he quit, and apart from Yachi, he doesn’t even have any lasting contact with his old friends there. _Karasuno Jazz Club_ met its end by fire -- with the amount of actual impact it had on his life, it might as well have been from falling sales or a tired audience. 

But Kageyama -- Kageyama, who played there only once as a fill-in -- is huddled and shaking on the floor. Hinata gathers him into his arms, and his long, shuddering breaths are the only sounds that fill the room for a long time. He can feel the front of his shirt getting soaked through but doesn’t dare to say anything. He only watches the rising sun filter through the window in the back of the apartment and wonders at the connection between Kageyama and _Karasuno_ that he’d never known. 

Eventually, Kageyama disentangles himself from their embrace to retreat to his room. Hinata cleans the broken plate and prepares breakfast, and when he brings his slightly burned omelette into Kageyama’s room he is sprawled on the bed, flipping through a photo album. He sits up when Hinata enters, and though his eyes are red he’s generally calmed down. He even manages a few disparaging comments about the quality of Hinata’s omelette as he wolfs it down. 

Hinata doesn’t ask about the pictures, but for once in his life, Kageyama volunteers information on his own: 

“ _Karasuno_ is basically where I learned to play.” 

Kageyama never talks about his childhood or his fleeting jazz career -- it’s always Hinata who volunteers stories of the small town where he grew up and pictures of his younger sister. But now, here they are, studying a picture of a sulky-looking teenager on a piano bench. 

“I’ve got to say, you were pretty cute even then,” remarks Hinata. 

That would normally have made the blood rush to his cheeks before Hinata could blink, but now Kageyama only traces his finger over the piano in the picture. 

“Have you been playing jazz your whole life?” 

"I’ve been learning jazz piano my whole life. But I never stayed with a band for long, even in high school.” 

Hinata doesn’t remember much of why Kageyama was so unpopular as a group member, only his choked-out words: _They say I’m a control freak_. It’s not hard to believe, considering what Kageyama’s pulled in their time as a group, but the price is miniscule compared to the heights he’s brought them to. 

“It was what I’d always dreamed of doing. You know, playing regular sets at a jazz club or something. But I wasn’t fit for that sort of thing. My mom kept trying to get me to shift to classical music -- and it’s true, I probably would done really well as a virtuoso pianist.” 

It’s rare that Kageyama speaks this much at once, and so Hinata doesn’t say anything. Kageyama bites his lip, looking at the picture but seeing something far beyond it. 

“I learned a lot from some of the older guys who managed Karasuno back then. They kept telling me that one day I’d be able to do it. They promised to let me play when I grew up, but it never happened, and -- now it’s gone.” 

His voice cracks, but he deals with it bravely, pursing his lips and closing his eyes. Hinata climbs onto Kageyama’s bed to plant a kiss on his forehead and lie down next to him. They both stare at the ceiling in silence. 

“Hey -- Shouyou.” Kageyama squeezes his hand. “Thanks for sticking around. In the end, I got to play music with someone, and, I mean -- you’re not the worst it could have been.” 

“Thanks,” laughs Hinata. 

But, fleetingly, he wonders if it’s really true: this isn’t the worst it could have been for Kageyama, but it could have been a hell of a lot better. 

Their next three shows are dedicated to fundraising for _Karasuno _, but due to a multitude of reasons (all those instruments cost a lot of money, their audience isn’t big enough to make much of a difference anyway) the cause slowly fades to the periphery. They begin to focus on their new album.__

____

Even Kageyama seems to have forgotten about it. He gets wistful every time they go through that area of Naka Ward, and sometimes Hinata catches him with that same old photo album, but on the whole, he seems as fine as he’s ever been. 

__

In fact, it’s just Hinata who’s unable to recover -- not from the club burning down but from the nagging unease that came with it. Hearing Kageyama play jazz on the piano after dinner fills him not with content but with guilt, and he can’t unhear the nostalgia that seems to haunt his playing.

__

The final straw happens at an interview, the first they’d had in a while. They’re on live radio, and that’s perhaps what makes it all the worse. 

__

“Now, have you guys always wanted to be musicians?” 

__

Hinata can’t remember if he’s answered this question before or not, but he tries to come up with something fresh anyway. 

__

___“Well, when I was a kid, I had a sort of vague, fantastical dream of being a pop star, especially because that’s when that sort of music started gaining traction. I sort of half-entertained that idea even after I grew up, but I probably wouldn’t have had the confidence to do anything with it without Kageyama.”_ _ _

__

___“And you, Kageyama?”_ _ _

__

___“It’s the same for me. I’ve always wanted to be a jazz pianist, but it wasn’t quite working out -- but what I had with these guys was, so I decided to move on.”_ _ _

__

Tsukishima and Yamaguchi continue on with their own answers, but Hinata is stuck on _I’ve always wanted to be a jazz pianist. I_ have _always wanted to be a jazz pianist. I decided to move on._

__

___He corners Kageyama outside the studio when they’re finished:_ _ _

__

___“I have always wanted to be a jazz pianist?”_ _ _

__

___“Yeah, what about it? I did want to, you know that.” Kageyama checks his watch. “Shouldn’t we be going?”_ _ _

__

“Not _I used to want to_?” 

__

___Kageyama’s hand falls to his side._ _ _

__

___“It was a slip of the tongue,” he says calmly._ _ _

__

___“Does a slip of the tongue keep happening -- four, five times? Why won’t you just be honest with me?”_ _ _

__

___“Why won’t you get your head out of your ass?” Kageyama shoots back._ _ _

__

“No, you get _your_ head out of your ass. I don’t want to be the reason you sit around regretting your life in thirty years.” 

__

___“I don’t have anything to regret!”_ _ _

__

___A studio employee shoots them a look from the glass window beside them, and Hinata is painfully reminded that they’re in public. He continues in a whisper:_ _ _

__

“Really? _Really?_ You’re going to pull that after what you just said?” 

__

___“You’re reading way too fucking much into this! I’m not secretly harboring dreams of being a jazz pianist, okay?”_ _ _

__

___“You’re not, but you could be. And that’s the whole problem.”_ _ _

__

___Kageyama starts toward him, but at that moment Tsukishima and Yamaguchi round the corner._ _ _

__

___“Hey, lovebirds. Let’s get going,” says Tsukishima._ _ _

__

___They both round on him, but he only sneers back at them, and Yamaguchi actually stifles a laugh. To the two of them, they must seem ridiculous -- red-faced, blustering, arguing about some petty thing as always._ _ _

__

___Hinata kicks the wall, winces at the pain throbbing in his toe, and follows them outside._ _ _

__

___ _

__

___“Hey, shrimp.”_ _ _

__

___Tsukishima is standing at his door, Yamaguchi in tow. And, to his surprise, Kageyama is leaning against the railing outside his flat, resolutely avoiding eye contact._ _ _

__

___“I thought you’d be at this guy’s place,” he jerks a thumb at Kageyama, whose scowl deepens, “but he was just sulking by himself. You two feuding or something?”_ _ _

__

___“In a sense,” grumbles Hinata. “Why are you here?”_ _ _

__

___“We have to have a discussion,” says Yamaguchi._ _ _

__

___“And no, we’re not doing marriage therapy,” adds Tsukishima._ _ _

__

___(For the record, they never even told Tsukishima or Yamaguchi they were dating -- it’s dangerous, in this day and age. But somehow, those piss-colored eyes see all, and they’re none the better for it.)_ _ _

__

___After Hinata has seating them on every piece of furniture he has (he himself is relegated to the floor), Tsukishima and Yamaguchi exchange a glance but say nothing. They look like they’re going to announce that they’re having a kid._ _ _

__

___“What’s going on? Are you two dating, too?”_ _ _

__

“ _No_ ,” says Tsukishima, so emphatically that it’s a little suspicious. “It’s not that. We’ve, well --” 

__

___“The band has been doing well, and, we definitely don’t want to abandon our future here,” Yamaguchi interjects, his words sounding distinctly rehearsed. “At the same time, we’d like to explore different avenues, if only to gain experience while we still can. We, uh -- we feel it’s important that we learn our own skills and limits and develop as musicians so we can better contribute to the success of the band as a whole…?”_ _ _

__

“Hold up. You guys are _leaving_?” says Kageyama. 

__

___“Were you even listening? We’re taking a break,” says Tsukishima. “The whole point of a break is that it’s not permanent. Giving up on you guys now would be dropping the best shot at job security we have as musicians.”_ _ _

__

___“It’s not anyone’s fault!” Yamaguchi says quickly. “It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do -- you know, traveling around the country, maybe a little further. And Tsukki agrees with me.”_ _ _

__

___All three of them slowly turn to Hinata, who’s the only one who hasn’t said anything._ _ _

__

___“That’s just great,” he says. “That’s perfect.”_ _ _

__

___“I knew you’d take this the wrong way,” Tsukishima groans, rubbing his temples. “We. Don’t. Hate--”_ _ _

__

“I’m not being sarcastic. This _is_ great. It’s the golden opportunity I never knew I needed.” 

__

___Kageyama seems to have forgotten his eye-contact ban, and he’s now staring open-mouthed at Hinata._ _ _

__

___“O-oh.” Yamaguchi cracks a tentative smile. “Well, I guess everything works out, then. We’ll update you when we work out the details.”_ _ _

__

___Kageyama mumbles something under his breath and makes to leave, but Hinata shoots up and grabs him by the back of his shirt._ _ _

__

___“He and I need to talk,” he tells Yamaguchi and Tsukishima in the cheeriest voice he can muster. “Thanks for the info.”_ _ _

__

___As soon as Tsukishima and Yamaguchi leave, Hinata forces Kageyama back onto the couch._ _ _

__

___“We’re taking a break too.”_ _ _

__

___The color drains from Kageyama’s face._ _ _

__

___“Like… a dating break? Or a music break?”_ _ _

__

___“A music break. You are going to return to jazz, and I am… well, I don’t really know, but I’ll be fine.”_ _ _

__

“I thought we went over this! This jazz thing isn’t a _thing_ anymore!” 

__

___“Yeah, it is! You quit jazz because you couldn’t connect with other people. Well, guess what you have successfully learned how to do?”_ _ _

__

___“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said, and you’ve set a pretty high standard. Just because I can play in a band doesn’t mean I can waltz into a jazz club and starting playing sets like nobody’s business.”_ _ _

__

___“It means exactly that.”_ _ _

__

“Don’t you get it? I’m happy here! I’m happy with _you_!” Kageyama rises to his feet, towering over Hinata. “For God’s sake, we’re dating -- shouldn’t that be proof enough?” 

__

___“I’ll say it again: I don’t want to be the reason you settle for something less.”_ _ _

__

___“NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU!” bellows Kageyama. “I have resigned myself to the fact that I’ll never be able to play jazz the real way, and everything is fine --”_ _ _

__

___Kageyama stops short, the implications of what he said only just now settling on him. He stares at Hinata’s feet, a a habit so old it drags him painfully back to days when Karasuno was still around and everything was blossoming between them -- but that’s all over now. What’s still remaining is a responsibility he can’t abandon._ _ _

__

___“Listen -- I know this will be good for both of us,” says Hinata. “I wouldn’t have been anything without you, but I need to make sure it’s not still that way, okay?”_ _ _

__

___“It’s not,” insists Kageyama. “It’s not. Let’s not do this.”_ _ _

__

___“We have to.”_ _ _

__

___He reaches for Kageyama, but he’s not surprised when he shoves him away. It’s the price he has to pay, Hinata tells himself, and they’ll eventually be okay._ _ _

For now, he winces as Kageyama slams the door shut behind him. 

Hinata is driven out of the city by his own mind. 

He can’t stop thinking about Kageyama -- who he hasn’t seen since their somewhat one-sided decision -- how he’s doing, if he’s employed yet, whether he’ll see him if he walks into the nearest jazz club. So he says goodbye to the streets of Yokohama, the Ferris wheel overlooking the harbor, and his little apartment, at least for the time being. 

__

___(Hinata had told Kageyama that their break wasn’t a dating break, but they haven’t spoken in weeks, and Hinata doesn’t know how they could possibly continue. So he supposes leaving is okay.)_ _ _

__

___He goes back home. He tells his mother that they’re doing great and that he’s just home because he misses his family. He gives his little sister enough sweets for her and all her friends, and attends one of her volleyball games even though she’s sort of hopeless. They lose, horribly, and so he unloads even more goodies on her._ _ _

__

Once Hinata’s stayed just long enough to start worrying his mother, he escapes to Tokyo, which is so big and so overwhelming that he could spend his whole life there and never miss what he’d left behind. Rent is expensive, so he takes up a job as at a waiter (just at a normal restaurant -- he’s had it with jazz clubs). To his surprise, he’s recognized every so often, but whatever momentary happiness he has is eclipsed by the questions that follow: _why did you guys take a break? When will you be back together? Where is everyone now?_

__

___(Just in case, he sends Kageyama his new phone number. But he doesn’t receive any calls.)_ _ _

__

___Eventually, he starts trying to do the whole music thing again. But the process of writing, revising, composing, and recording, if it was tedious before, is now practically insurmountable. Every time he gives it another attempt, he is confronted with everything he’s been fearful of: it turns out he can’t do this on his own after all._ _ _

__

An article he really hadn’t wanted to read but had somehow makes its way onto his breakfast table cements it in for him. It’s an issue of the _Yokohama Performer_ , which he really should have unsubscribed from a while ago, and Kageyama Tobio is glaring at him from the front cover. 

__

___He skims the feature -- the first half is stuff he knows, his origins and the band’s origins and Karasuno Jazz Club and all that. But then in shifts to what he’s doing now, namely, his success as a jazz musician._ _ _

__

_“I’m glad I stopped playing jazz for a couple of years. It was instrumental for me to learn how to deal with other people before I tried to take on the art form, and I enjoyed myself immensely,”_ the article reads. _“I’m not sure about my future. I guess we’ll see as time goes on.”_

__

___Hinata feels sick._ _ _

__

___He wants to cry, but his well has dried up; he’s expended what little emotional reserves he had on paper that now lies crumpled in the trash. He should be vindicated -- every single one of his predictions has come true -- but some part of him had been hoping that Kageyama would come crying back to him, and that they could just pick up from where they left off._ _ _

__

Yokohama Performer. He’s gotten only a postcard from Tsukishima and Yamaguchi, and it seems like they’re immersed in the music scene wherever they are. 

__

Yet here he is, a little boy once more watching the backs of his grown-up friends, only worth something when other people are bringing out the best in him. 

But slowly, Hinata learns -- if not to be successful on his own, then how to do _something_ on his own. He writes a few songs, but they’re too crappy to make it past the wastebasket. He thinks about Kageyama less each day, but it’s still not enough to give him purpose. 

__

__

__

___He feels as though some sort of revelation is incumbent, that he’ll be struck with the meaning of life and music and return to his bandmates fulfilled, satisfied even if they tell him that they want this break to continue forever._ _ _

__

__

__

___(Because that’s what’s holding him back, really, is the looming fear that this separation will be better for everyone but him.)_ _ _

__

__

__

___For a good few weeks, he goes back and forth about the idea of returning to Kageyama. He’ll let him play his jazz, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi will come back eventually, and they’ll pick up a new keyboardist. He and Kageyama will still stay together, and they’ll support each other’s endeavors. But even as it plays out in his mind, a bitter taste fills the back of his mouth. They started from playing music together, and it feels as though they’re founded on music: to try and continue without it would be walking on thin ice._ _ _

__

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___And so, through excessive angst, several late nights, and an unfortunate head-banging against the wall, Hinata comes to an apt conclusion: he’s not going to cut off Kageyama’s dream halfway, but he can’t leave his own to rot._ _ _

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___Hinata will return to Yokohama and break things off with Kageyama. Then he will start from scratch with someone who wants to do this as much as he does, so he’ll never weigh them down._ _ _

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___Hinata’s plan is to call Kageyama and arrange a meeting. But when he doesn’t answer after three calls in three hours, Hinata grows increasingly anxious._ _ _

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___There are two distinct possibilities. One: having found his ticket to fame, Kageyama will hardly even want to see him and will gladly break things off. But Hinata can’t imagine that after the days and months and years they spent under the same roof, Kageyama won’t miss Hinata even half as much as Hinata missed Kageyama._ _ _

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___No, more likely: Kageyama will be furious that Hinata absconded for two months, and won’t even try to listen to what Hinata wants to say._ _ _

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___It’s force of habit by now for Hinata to get out as quickly as possible whenever his thoughts get too big for his tiny brain, so he’s hardly even thinking when his feet find their way to the familiar Yokohama streets. They seem to welcome him home, warmer and friendlier than Tokyo ever was, and Hinata feels distinctly stupid for letting such simple problems run him out of his city._ _ _

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___Speaking of stupid things: Hinata stops in his tracks as the sound of very distinct jazz hits him with full force from down the street. And from his gut reaction -- from the way his heart swells so suddenly his whole body hurts -- he knows who is playing._ _ _

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___Yet he still goes inside._ _ _

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___He stays hidden in the back of the shadows, and the place is busy enough that none of the wait staff notice him and seat him. It’s a cafe, not a club, and people are chatting in low voices while watching the group of four at the front._ _ _

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Kageyama doesn’t look happy, per se, but he looks comfortable: he’s nodding along to the saxophone solo that’s going on, and Hinata can see in him what he saw in the old regulars at _Karasuno_ \-- understanding and trust. 

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It sounds good, it sounds _amazing_ , and Hinata is bitter enough that he turns to leave then and there. But he makes the mistake of stepping into the light hanging over the entrance just as Kageyama looks up to signal the rest of the band, and for the briefest, most catastrophic second, their eyes meet. 

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___The music stumbles to a halt as the rest of the group looks to see what has caught their pianist’s attention, and Hinata makes a run for it. The piano bench screeches across the floor behind him and Hinata’s stomach lurches. Kageyama has always been faster than him._ _ _

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___And sure enough, it takes not thirty seconds before Kageyama rounds the corner right on Hinata’s heels -- he braces for a punch, but is instead swept into an kiss._ _ _

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___Hinata yelps into Kageyama’s open mouth, and he loosens his grip enough for Hinata to squirm free if he wants, but he lets himself have this. He missed these details he couldn’t imagine fully in his months away -- the way Kageyama nips at his bottom lip, the rhythmic way he combs his hands through his hair. It’s only when they’re forced to gasp for breath that Kageyama sets him down. He still doesn’t release him from his grasp, and instead rests his head on Hinata’s shoulder._ _ _

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“Hey, you little shit, you decided to come back, didn’t you?” mumbles Kageyama into his ear. The disconnect between what he’s saying and the tenderness with which he’s being held is almost frightening. “I’m going to fucking disembowel you when I’m through with this.” 

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“Fair enough,” Hinata squeaks. 

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It takes a good minute before Kageyama steps away from him. He looks exactly the same as when Hinata saw him last, save for his suit and swept-back hair. Hinata resists the urge to reach forward and mess it up, and instead opens his mouth to deliver his spiel. 

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“Whatever you’re going to say, you’re wrong,” says Kageyama. 

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“At least hear me out--” 

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“You saw the interview with _Yokohama Performer_ , am I right? And you’re here to tell me to follow my passion and that the band is through?” 

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Hinata hopes that the darkness masks how quickly he flushes with embarrassment. 

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“I’m glad you forced me back into jazz,” he says, and predictably, Hinata’s heart sinks. “You were right -- I thought that I was copping out because everyone told me I wouldn’t be able to do it. And when I came back successful, I proved them all wrong.” 

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“I told you so,” Hinata says, his voice sounding incredibly small. 

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“No, you didn’t. We were both wrong about one thing: what I was looking for -- what made me so bitter when I watched the old guys at _Karasuno_ play -- was the way they played. The fact that they had some goddamn friends to play with.” 

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And there’s the punch -- but it’s gentle, and his fist rests there, right over Hinata’s heart. 

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“I set my heart on jazz when I was a kid because it meant something to me. And yeah, I’m good at it now, but that grand resolution I thought I’d have never came. You want to guess why?” 

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“No, actually, I don’t.” 

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“You stole the show,” he says softly. “And I’m no worse of a person for choosing you, because I got what I wanted in the end.” 

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_I got what I wanted in the end_. Hinata doesn’t have to ask to know what it means -- it’s the way that when one of them starts to sing, the other instinctively joins in, and when one falls silent, the other is unable to continue. It’s the exact sort of relationship Hinata fears the most after all this time: the ailment known as dependency.

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“I wanted to show myself I’d be fine on my own,” says Hinata after a long moment, “but I couldn’t. I tried, and here I am.”

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“So what?” cries Kageyama. “I couldn’t do much on my own either. My success -- my fame, or whatever -- it was a failure. Your view of things is just fucked up.”

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“I--”

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“It’s normal to sound crappier when you’re alone. Isn’t that the whole reason this band thing exists in the first place?”

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Hinata stands there, every one of his arguments pulled out from under him, and Kageyama only smirks at him. 

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“Don’t stand there and tell me you want to end things now,” he says. “This is what I want. Is it what you want?” 

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And it’s that simple. 

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**Author's Note:**

> the title is from fly me to the moon, which i listened to on repeat while writing this.


End file.
